Gop Aims Potshots At A Target That Doesn't Exist Anymore

If one needs further evidence, which one should not, that the Republican Party is bereft of ideas, one needs to look only at the presidential and congressional campaigns throughout the country.

Democratic candidates again are the targets of the scattershot of those heretofore trusty, old Grand Old Party blunderbusses: They are in bed with labor; at odds with businesses; cold toward victims, squishy-soft on criminals (it used to be Communists); disciples of big taxes, big spending and big government; enemies of school choice, school prayer and respect for the flag.

To mix a metaphor, the GOP snipers continue to pray that their buckshot will again magically meld into that silver bullet that has gunned down so many Democrats in recent years: the dreadful ''L'' word, LIBERAL.

It has, in the past, found its mark. Poor Michael Dukakis, who never should have taken a ride in that Army tank or worn that helmet that made him look like Snoopy out of ''Peanuts,'' was branded a ''bleeding-heart liberal,'' which maybe he was, but I doubt it. At the same time, he was labeled a ''cold fish,'' mostly because of the stupid answer he gave to a stupid question in a presidential debate about what he would do if his wife were raped.

How one can be, at the same time, a bleeding heart and a cold fish continues to escape me. ''Whatever,'' (to quote Bob Dole), with the help of Willie Horton, the GOP shot down Dukakis as a woeful ''L.'' Similarly, in 1994, the Republicans conquered Congress with their liberal barrage.

Fair enough. But, the Republicans' once-silver bullet may be spent. For the fact is that they are taking potshots at a target that simply doesn't exist anymore - and voters, if the polls are correct, know it.

To take it from the top: From the pathetic efforts of Bob Dole on down, the Republicans try to portray President Clinton as a liberal ideologue. My God! Clinton a liberal ideologue! The guy who bought into the cruel GOP ''welfare reform,'' the guy who caved in to the conservatives on gay rights, the guy who ran for cover and deserted suspected liberal Cabinet nominees in the face of fire from the radical right, the guy who is an apostle of the death penalty and waffles on affirmative action.

My God! Hubert Humphrey surely is spinning in his grave, and George McGovern must be pulling out what is left (pardon the expression) of his hair at the notion that Bill Clinton is a liberal. (Of course, Humphrey and McGovern were a couple of losers, while Clinton, the mugwump, appears to be on his way to being a two-time winner.)

But persons lower than angels, and lower than the president even, are in the gunsights of this exhausted GOP firepower.

For instance, a Democratic woman seeking a U.S. Senate seat in Louisiana has been branded a liberal. A liberal in Louisiana? That's rarer than a pearl in an oyster in a raw bar on Bourbon Street.

Across the land, Democrats vying for congressional seats are branded with an ''L,'' as though it were a scarlet letter, by Republicans in rout, because they are pro-choice, pro-union, pro-minimum-wage increase and pro-gun control.

I know what a conservative is: He or she is one who villainizes immigrants, gays, the poor and minorities and who grovels before the rich.

But what is a liberal today? Sure, we have our tree-huggers and our gay deceivers, our bleeding hearts and our lost souls. We still try to look out for the blue-collar gang, even though they recently deserted us, but we are also concerned about the down-sized, white-collar crowd that is wandering, however reluctantly, into our fold.

Still, as the historian Gary Willis recently wrote: ''If there were any kind of left in the country, we would not put up with a situation in which CEOs make 225 times the compensation given to average employees under them, or in which the top 1 percent of the population owns 48 percent of the nation's financial wealth, while the bottom 80 percent owns only 6 percent. . . .''

So, there are a few liberal lefties left. Ted Kennedy, so long the bete noir of the right wing, now cuts deals with Sen. Nancy Kassebaum on health, Sen. Alan Simpson on immigration and Sen. Orrin Hatch on God knows what. Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota seems to be the one ''embarrassingly liberal'' exception.

Kennedy and his kind - and I don't mean this unkindly - are more like the liberal described by the 19th-century poet and critic Matthew Arnold: ''I am a Liberal, yet I am a Liberal tempered by experience, reflection, and renouncement. . . .''

One might add that today's liberals are also tempered by polls, focus groups and fat cats.

But, of course, these foolish things do temper also conservatives, I do believe.